Archive for April, 2009

Things Older People Do to Make Us More Comfortable in Their Presence

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

My mother, 81, is hard of hearing, and will, when seated next to new people at a gathering, turn to each in turn and say, "If any of my comments tonight seem absurdist, don't take it personally." Sociologist Setsuko Nishi, 86, ...

The Unanticipated Side Effects of Strokes

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

70 year-old British playwright Alan Ayckbourn--whose "The Norman Conquests" is currently on Broadway--had a stroke a few years back, at which point he started confusing the words "yes" and "no." He told Sarah Lyall in yesterday's Times, "'A very nice doctor ...

Friends, and Why to Have Them

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Increasingly, medical studies show us that having a lot of friends helps us live longer. An article by Tara Parker-Pope in today's Times pointed out that some studies even show that friendships have a greater role on our health than ...

Elderism #46

Saturday, April 18th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

At the end of her life, Flannery O'Connor, her lupus ever worse, was sequestered in her mother's house in the backwoods Georgia that the writer had once hoped to flee. She was only able to write only a few hours ...

My New Role Model

Thursday, April 16th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

It occurs to me that so many of my favorite reading experiences--Calvin Trillin's food trilogy, David Sedaris and Joan Didion's essays--are the product of slightly-frayed paperback editions of previously-published magazine work. And now I have a new one: Jim Harrison's ...

Elderism #45

Thursday, April 16th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Joyce Carol Oates: "I go into a very happy state of mind when I'm vacuuming. I think some of my male colleagues, like Philip Roth and Don DeLillo, are completely denied this pleasure." Cognoscenti and trackers of the domestic arts may be ...

The Eternal Appeal of Hairlessness, Part Deux

Thursday, April 16th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

In Chip McGrath's profile of Mike Nichols in the Times this past Sunday, we learn that the director of the cinema landmark, "The Graduate," "wakes up every morning..., collects himself and, wearing a wig and paste-on eyebrows, plays a character called ...

Got Goat?

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

If you look at the Dining section of today's New York Times, you'll find a story I wrote about how I learned to love eating goat. (It is here.) Everyone has had a bad goat experience, it seems--either the meat ...